Rajasthan

The cities covered in Rajasthan were Jaipur, Sikar, Jodhpur, Bandwana, Bisu, Nagaur, Ajmer, Tonk with a purpose to locate, interact and document the vernacular traditions or the style of singing of musicians belonging to the performing families, predominantly living in the older part of the city. And also to interact with and record ghazal singers who perform or identify with some sort of a presence of Khusrau’s compositions in the genre.

In Jodhpur visits were undertaken to Rupayan Santhan, Sangeet Natak Akademi, Oriental Research Institute to get leads on local musicians. Interviews were conducted with Irfan Tufail Qawwal and Sharfuddin Qawwal. Chanan Khan Manganiar, Hayat Mohammad Langa, Pir Abdul Baqi and Pir Abdur Rubaab Chishti. Our assumption based upon listening to archival recordings of performers like Nur Mohammed Langa, Bhungar Khan, Allah Jilai Bai and Rukma Bai Manganiyar that thematic connections between their performed repertoire and the repertoire attributed to Khusrau proved to be wrong as it emerged out of the field trips that there are hardly any musicians who perform Khusrau’s compositions.